Have you ever been so happy over someone's success, you wanted to tip over a news van? Like when your little brother won his little league game or when your fat friend ate 30 dollars worth of shrimp at a $9.99 all-you-can-eat dinner. Two nights ago in LA, it happened to a few thousand people. After the Lakers beat the Pacers, the people of Los Angeles did what any happy group of people would do -- they threw rocks and bottles at cops and burned their city down.

Laker fans, the first species of animal fully recognized as "retarded" by the world's taxonomists, had to get dragged away from bonfires and riots that went on for hours after the game. News vans were tipped over, cars were lit on fire, and businesses near the Staples Center were vandalized and looted. Four people were injured during the riots, adding to the two that received medical attention after slipping and falling inside the arena during the game. Those are the two that are inexcusable. You expect a few people to get injured when thousands of people decide it's time to play Rabies Victim*, but when can't watch a basketball game without hospitalizing yourself, you have some serious problems. I don't know how people can explain to their families that they were injured an hour before Laker riots of 2000 when they got up at halftime to get cotton candy.* "Rabies Victim" is a game invented by bored missionaries where one person pretends to have rabies and another pretends to also have rabies.

Six little injuries. When there's a soccer game in Scotland, you're lucky if you leave with that many teeth left in your mouth. Soccer fans in other countries make the Laker riot seem like an argument between two narcoleptics playing Mario Brothers, but there's a reason. They're not bad motherfucking Americans. They spend their days watching our old Starsky and Hutch reruns, smoking cigarettes, and looking at sculptures of old naked men. You can expect them to freak out when people are bouncing a ball around on their foreheads, but in America, we jump off of bridges with rubber bands around our necks. We have passenger side airbags because you never know how much our drivers have had to drink. And we don't park our cars, we maybe slow down to thirty five and jump out. Mountain Dew comes out of our faucets and any one of us has probably taken out an armada of space aliens or vampires. Open one of our beers and it'll make it snow in the god damn room. So somebody won a basketball game, LA? That's great. Tell me when they're naked chicks wrestling in a vat of oatmeal someone dropped out of a plane, and then I'll think about getting excited.

In other basketball news, here's a fast fact: no matter how much money a basketball player makes, it only takes a couple million more to get one of them make a god damn fool of themselves (see above left and right). However, if you're a basketball fan, all it takes is the game actually finishing for you to tell the world you're an idiot.

Above: a Laker fan during his celebration, who had this to comment to nearby photographers, "Raoooraggghhhh!!!! BLAAAAH!" Experts speculate the fucker would have probably killed and eaten somebody if his team had actually lost the game.

Here a group of rioters tip over a news van as if to say, "Hooray!" This footage helped police identify them as (from left to right) Kobe Bryant, Alexander the Grape, Zippy, Kobe Bryant, Kobe Bryant, and Fat Shaq.

Trying to beat a personal best, a Laker fan and dipshit tries to look as stupid as possible. Most people would have stopped at the complete basketball uniform. Still others would have called it "stupid enough" after they lit their own town on fire. But this man takes it that extra step with the little Shaquille O'Neal paper puppet on a stick. Congratulations, hero. You're one bowtie away from going off the idiot scale.

PART 2: THE FIERY FLAMES OF PASSION
How do huge fires always get started once there's enough insane people in one place? Last week on Survivor...

... three college students, a big gay guy and a Navy Seal worked for three hours with sticks and a winning spirit and didn't get anything more than a little smoke and a lot of whining. Then they ate some rats and whined more. When I go camping, it takes me and my friends 25 newspapers, three quarts of motor oil, and homemade napalm to get a fire started. What kind of damn MacGuyvers were running around in the rioting Laker crowd that knew how to get a blaze going with only the stuff they brought to the game? Could they shoot lasers out of their eyes? I know they didn't have lighters because you're not allowed to smoke in California. Maybe they used hot dogs. I don't know. That fire up there (above right -- lower photo) looks like a fifteen year old is starting it with an SUV and a parking cone. That's fucking crazy.

It seems like people that can light cars on fire using only their irrational excitement shouldn't be watching some basketball game. They should be strapped to some chair somewhere with scientists and tubes and things to discover the secret of their fantastic powers.

While the trash, cars, and Pacers t-shirts were burning, the local city fire spokesman, Brian Humphrey, was optimistic about it. He announced that the bonfires "did not threaten people or property." Yeah, Brian, until you remember that these are the same people that lost their mind and started ramming into each other an hour ago. I think once you have a stadium of people you've established as insane mixed with giant flames, the people and property in that area can consider themselves fucked. You don't throw a box of razor blades into a preschool and expect them to be around for the birthday party later.